The Waikato Times. (Equal and exact justice to all men, Of whatever state or persuasion, religions or political. Here shall the Press the People's right maintain, Unawed by influence and unbribed by gain. SATURDAY, JUNE 26, 1880.

Waikato Times, Volume XV, Issue 1247, 26 June 1880, Page 2

The Waikato Times. (Equal and exact justice to all men, Of whatever state or persuasion, religions or political. Here shall the Press the People's right maintain, Unawed by influence and unbribed by gain. SATURDAY, JUNE 26, 1880.

The outcry which has been raised against what has been called " Government by Commission," has been of a nature so vehement as to induce us to the belief that it proceeded from quarters where there existed the greatest need for investigation. We, therefore, regarded this exibition of indignation with suspicion, and if we are to place any reliance on the report of the Civil Service Commission now before us, we acted wisely in so doing. For, however inexhaustively the Commissioners have gone into the matters relegated to them, and they are careful to point out that in many cases they were enabled to make only the most superficial examination, their report affords the most conclusive proof, if any indeed were needed, that, in regard to the numbers of its civil servants and the nature and extent of their services, New Zealand is the most overweighted country on the face of the earth. This gigantic civil service of ours numbering no less than 10,853 individuals, is not the creature of any one administration ; it has attained its present proportions by a gradual process, which extends almost as far back as the history of the Colony, and constitutes a colossal monument to the cowardice and indecision of the last half-dozen Cabinets. It has grown up to be a very Frankenstein to the country, and until the accession of the present Ministry to office there has never been anything of the nature of an attempt to rob it of its dangerous tendency to hypertrophy. A good deal of obloquy has been thrown on the Government by persons from whom better things might have been expected, because they have attempted to cope with the evil by means of a Commission ; but we fail to see that a fairer course could have been adopted. Surely if we are to find impartiality anywhere we shall discover it in the report of the four gentlemen who performed this duty, and whose report from beginning to end breathes a spirit of perfeat fair play. To turn to the report itself, we find the Commissioners saying at the very outset. "We are conscious of " having left some large and impor- " tant branches of the service alto- " gether uninvestigated, of having " inquired very superficially into " others, and of having gone exhaus- " tively into none." And they then proceed to detail the sttps taken to conduct their inquiry so far as it went. The ground being thus cleared they proceed, in the clearest and most concise language, to report seriatim on the different departments of the service. Commencing with the railways, we read :—": — " At an early " stage of our inquiry we came to " the conclusion that the Railway " Department was the one which " most urgently demanded reform, " and in which the greatest amount "of useless expenditure existed. " We therefore determined that it "■should be the department which "we would strictly investigate " during the limited time at our " disposal before the meeeting of j " Parliament, at whatever sacrifice ! " of attention to other departments, " where any mismanagement would " involve less serious consequences "to the colony." The railway system of the South Island is then examined with critical exactness, and its every abuse — and they appear to be by no means few — brought to the the surface and fearlessly commented on. " Men," say the Commissioners, " with no special ability or " training have been appointed to " highly-paid offices, and to per- " form duties which are either quite " unnecessary or within the capacity "of an ordinary clerk. The service " is split up into three distinct de- " partments, with such an absence " of definition as to their respective i " duties and powers, that business ! " is carried on in a constant spirit "of antagonism between them." In efficient management,and an utter disregard of the commonest principles of economy, appear from the report to be the leading characteristics in the policy which has been pursued, on the system extending from Amoerly, in Canterbury, to Kingston, in Southland, and which comprises, branch lines included, 767 miles of railway. Nor is the evil confined to the traffic department ; the existence of two separate staffs of engineers belonging respectively to lines in course of construction, and to those already constructed and in working order, is a source of " great expense as well as delay 11 and confusion. We find," the report goes on to say " that a really " professional opinion is very seldom " sought for or required by those en- " gaged in the daily work of keep-

" ing the line in repair. For all " practical purposes the Inspectors " of Permanent Way are the working " engiueors on the open lines, and " would often be better without the " interference of less experienced " persons than themselves. Where " a professional opinion is really " required, the nearest engineer in " the Government service should " always be available for the purpose." The Railway Telegraph Department is set down at unnecessary, the report recommending that it be abolished without delay, and that the work be performed by the ordinary officers. On this point, however, a good deal may be advanced on the other side, and the Commissioners, whose object has been to indicate where a saving may be effected in this branch of the service, have recognised this by admitting that " where the business is " large a special wire appears " desirable," though they maintain that this could be worked in the present public offices. In Dunedin they find an officer receiving £600 a-year; in Nelson one receiving £425, and another ,£l6O a year, and at Kaipara, one getting £300 a year, whose services are altogether disproportionate to the salary, and ought not to be retained. They found, also, that a number of other unnecessary officers could be dispensed with. We have no space to follow this portion of the report very closely, but we may note here that it discloses the most lamentable carelessness, on the part of the officials, as regards the stock and pant of the railway, and in the manner in which much of the work done for the department has been tendered for and executed. " Public " officers have had most tempting " facilities offered to them to gratify " contractors by passing inferior " articles, and we have some oppor- " tunities of seeing that they did " not always resist the tempta- " tion Heavy castings, " giving a great profit to contractors, " have been ordered and found useu. less, and an irresistible suspicion " created that the protection of the " public interest has not been made " a first consideration in the trans- " action." The Commissioners recommend the discontinuance of the system of obtaining railway stores from contractors in the colony, and urge that the articles of ordinary consumption should be imported. In addition to finding the South Island Commissioner to a great degree incompetent, they bring against him a very serious charge, alleging that he has capital invested in a firm contracting with the department of which he is the head, and that the receipts on the capital depend on the success of that firm. While they admit that "loose irregular and suspicious transactions" of the nature referred to above are confined to the South Island, the Commissioner of the North Island was found to be insufficiently informed upon many important details of his department. They then proceed to say : — " In Auckland " we found that, on 26th February, "1879, a traffic manager who had " had great experience in the " management of railways in India " and Australia was appointed to " take charge of the traffic on the " Auckland line with inducements " held out to him of increased " salary if he could reduce the " working expenses of that line from " its then rate of 94 per cent, of the " gross earnings to anything under "70 per cent. While he continued " in this position the expenses were " reduced to 68 per cent., and that " certainly without any friendly " aid from his superior officer, the " Auckland General Manager. The " loud complaints which had previ- " ously been made by the Auckland " public were silenced,and his conduct " seemed to have been satisfactory. "In consequence of the language " and actions of his unfriendly su- " perior, this officer felt compelled "to resign. His resignation was " accepted ; and, although the gene- " ral manager was censured for his " action towards this subordinate " officer, his services were retained, " whilst the too-successful traffic " manager has been lost to the ser- " vice, and the public complaints " are again revived. So little en%i couragement does this service offer " to meritorious or even successful i " officers, and so easy is it made to | " drive away any dangerous rival." They recommend, in view of the fact that neither of the Commissioners of Railways displays the qualities necessary for their possition, the removal of these officers and the substitution of one head of the department who, they think should " be rather a man of business, with " good organising capacity, than " simply an engineer, or even rail- " way expert, and should be expec- " ted to arrange the business of the " department, as a private proprie- " tor would do, with a view to make " the line pay and serve the public." The closing recommendation of this portion of the report is as follows : — "We are of opinion that a re- " duction of not less than \2\ per " cent, should be made on the railway " wages and salaries, though it is " quite possible that it may not be " desirable to be perfectly uniform " in the application of this decrease " of pay to all officers and branches "of the service. This would effect 11 a direct saving of £82,000, and " would materially lead indirectly to " a great reduction in the cost of " new works let by tender, which it " would not be too much to esti- " mate as likely to reach at least an " equal amount." This will not, we

think, meet with such hearty concurrence as many of tho other suggestions contained in the report. As a rule, railway servants are not overpaid, aud any further decrease would have tho effect of driving a number of good men from the service. That reductions might be made in very many cases we fully allow ; but the reduction should be confined to that class, and not be made to operate upon all alike. In any case let all unnecessary offices be abolished first. It cannot bo denied, considering the shortness of the time at the disposal of the Commission, that many things have been hastily examined, or that unjust inferences have been drawn from the evidence adduced before them ; but it seems to us, after a careful perusal of the report, that the errors inseparable from it are rather those of omission than commission, and it is better that we should know and remedy some of the evils in our system than that we should wait for a full exposure before attempting a remedy. A considerable poroion of the report is devoted to Public Works, and in this department alone numberless abuses were discovered and are plainly and somewhat fully dealt with. "Here, as in most " other departments of the New " Zealand Government, highly-paid " men are too often, employed at " work requiring no uncommon " ability, and engineers are found " acting as accountants, as inspec- " tors, or as clerks of works. " Fifty-seven engineers at high " salaries, and often with expensive " offices, form a staff out of all pro- " portion to the work to be done ; " and it is evident that these engi- " neers, if fully employed at all, " must be engaged on work not " requiring a professional head. "In order to find any appearance " of employment for this host of " engineers, the most absurd regula- " tions have to be adopted. . . . " A much smaller' number of engi- [ " neers who were men of ability and " experience could evidently supply " all the engineering skill our public " works are likely to require." and " Even such a staff would be " capable of further reduction as " the expenditure of borrowed " money draws to a close." After enumerating many of the defects of this branch of the service, arising not from the inefficiency of the individual engineers, butf rom the inherent bad qualities in the constitution of the department, the report speaks very strongly on the subject of the mistakes committed regarding the use of our native timber. On this point they find " that the most con- " tradictory opinions are heldjeading '• to the use in one district of a tim- " ber strongly condemned for the " same purpose in another, and un- " fortunately these opinions seem " to vary in the direction least con- " ducive to economy. Kauri, which " is plentiful in Auckland, has been " found to be quite useless for piles " in salt water, and totara, which is " comparatively scarce is now used ; " while in Napier where no kauri " grows, and totara is cheap and " plentiful, a large bridge across the " harbour, costing more than " £12,000 is being built with piles "of imported kauri, though it is " well known that the latter timber " is soon destroyed by the teredo in " salt water. On the Auckland " lines puriri, which is admitted to "be the best wood in New Zealand " for sleepers, and is readily obtain " able, is neglected, while kauri, " which cannot be compared with it " for durability, is used." In this department also, the Commission strongly urge concentration of authority as the best remedy for the existing evils. With the other branches of the service the report deals in the same exhaustive manner, and we shall endeavour to pursue the subject in this direction in another article. We have given our first consideration to Railways and Public Works not merely because they occupy first and second place in the report, but because we think they are subjects to which the thoughts of colonists are oftenest directed, and in which we are all most deeply interested.